The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1887-08-11
CHARLOTTE Russo
OF WIVES,

The Brooklyn Tabernacle was
crowded to excess yesterday morning.
Dr.. Talmage continued his course of
sermons on the Marriage Ring" and
chose as his text Genesis XVI. 63-
"Isaac went out to mediate in the
field at eventide, and he lifted up his
eyes and saw, and behold the camels
were coming" In the curse of his
sermon he said
II shall this morning take it for
granted that your marriage is all right,
and I shall 60 on and advise you how
to treat your wife. My ambition is to
tell you more plain truth than you
have ever heard in any three-quarters
of an hour in all your life. And first
Of all l charge you to realize the re-
sponsibility Of having taken her away
from the custody of her loving parents,
and from the homestead in which she
was sheltered. It is amazing that any
of us have the sublimity of impudence
to ask such a transfer to a home that
is not yet constructed. How ought
you to treat her? My brother, you
ought to treat her we'll you ought to
treat her better than anyone in the
universe, excepting God Almighty.
Her name should sound sweeter than
music to you, and her eyes, though
swollen with watching a child sick
with the scarlet fever, should be
brighter to you than a May morning.
She has a first mortgage on you, body,
mind and soul. Now, why don't you
pay your debts You believe in the
force of a contract. If you promised
kindness and faithfulness and have
not fulfilled these promises, you have
fraudulently induced one into conjugal
partnership, and should be mulcted
for a large amount of damages. Oh,
fulfill your contracts! Men of bust
ness have lots of contracts, and some
times they take them and read what
the party of the first part and the
party of the second part agreed to do.
Have you forgotten your contract ?
Then you had better take, buy or Dor
row an Episcopal prayer-book and
read the marriage contract. The
marriage relation is more sacred after
a baptism of tears-tears over the lost,
over the grave.
"Before marriage, when you came
into the house you were as full of
smiles and politeness as a peach
orchard i'm blossom week. Now you
come in the house and say, I've lost
money today You sit down at the
table, criticising the food, and snatch
up the evening newspaper. The chill
dren are awed at the domestic auto
crat. Though filed with healthful
curiosity, they must ask no questions
the wife has had annoyance in the
kitchen until her nerves are all like
spikes. My brother, you have no ap-
probation of the fact that your chill
dren will be soon grown up or in
cemeteries, and you will have no OPP
portunity to influence them the
house in which you live will 60 into
other hands, and you yourself will be
gone. Marriage is a bargain. In
some lands people purchase their
wives with cattle and sheep. In our
land marriage is an affectionate bar
gain, in which a man promises protec-
ton, support, companionship and love.
Are you fulfilling all that bargain? |
will tell you what you all know. Some
men show more respect to other wives
than their own, and many a man there
is who allows his wife to carry a scut-
tie of coal upstairs who will clear a
room with one bound to pick up an
other lady's handkerchief. Filtration
is devilish. Why don't you put it l
the, bond, you domestic shylock?
Why don't you have it understood
before you are pronounced husband
and wife? A married man who in
dulges in Irritation is either a fraud or
a rake. I care not how high his or
her standing, I would not give a
~three-cent piece that had been three
times clipped for the virtue of a mas
culine or feminine firt."-ITlbune.